PETALING JAYA: Familiar rivals from Indonesia Apriyani Rahayu-Siti Fadia Ramadhanti could derail national No. 1 Pearly Tan-M. Thinaah’s hopes in the women’s doubles in the All-England starting on Tuesday in Birmingham.
Apriyani made her first competitive appearance in six months in the Orleans Masters and reached the last eight with Fadia before going down to South Korea’s world No. 1 Baek Ha-na-Lee So-hee in France.
Pearly-Thinaah, who also made it as far the quarter-finals before losing to China’s Jia Yifan-Zhang Shuxian, are likely to face the Indonesians in the All-England second round.
The world No. 6 Pearly-Thinaah and Apriyani-Fadia should overcome Taiwanese pairs Teng Chun-hsun-Yang Chu-yun and Hsu Yin-hui-Lin Jhih-yun respectively in the opening round.
Pearly-Thinaah memorably beat Apriyani-Fadia in their last encounter en route to their historic semi-final finish in the Paris Olympics last August.
The Malaysians narrowly lead 4-3 in the head-to-head records and all their matches so far have been very close, pointing to another tight affair.
Apriyani, who famously captured gold in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics with previous partner Greysia Polii, is happy to be back playing again after her long layoff and hopes to get back to her best.
“I feel thankful to be back on court again after slowly going through my recovery process. Everything has gone according to plan so far,” said Apriyani in an interview published by the Indonesian national badminton team (PBSI).
“I am getting used to competing again and adapting to different situations in matches.
“My performance is improving and I hope to get back to my best as soon as possible.”
If Pearly-Thinaah manage to defeat Apriyani-Fadia, they could face another tough task against Japan’s world No. 3 and 2022 champions Nami Matsuyama-Chiharu Shida in the quarter-finals.
For the record, Pearly-Thinaah have never made it past the last eight in the All-England so far.
